Comet Over Hollywood: The forgotten Best Picture winner

By Jessica Pickens

Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 04:03 PM.

I recently watched “How Green Was My Valley” for the first time and for the first 10 minutes my jaw was dropped. The beauty that director John Ford conveys is breath taking, and some scenes are so full of emotion no words have to be spoken. I’m not one to sob during movies, but I teared up seven times while watching this one.

One scene that stuck out in my mind is after all the sons leave the dinner table after an argument about unions. Ford does a long shot down the table, showing empty seats and the father has sadly dropped his head. Huw sitting at the far end of the table coughs lightly to let his father know he is still there.

“I know you are there, son,” Father said.

I have seen all the movies nominated for that year, and while I enjoy all of them, none of them struck me as much as “How Green Was My Valley.”

The haunting beauty of the countryside and the heart-breaking emotion in the film has stuck with me after I turned off the movie.

Though “How Green Was My Valley” has been on lists of worst best picture winners in articles and blogs, I feel it was the rightful award winner of that year.

Ten movies were nominated for the Best Picture of 1941 Academy Award, including the iconic film “Citizen Kane” directed by Orson Welles.

But “Citizen Kane,” the film named as best picture of all time by the American Film Institute, is not the movie that won.

It was “How Green Was My Valley,” John Ford’s story of a Welsh mining community, that took home the Oscar that night in 1942.

“Valley” is a story told through the eyes of the youngest of the Morgan family, Huw, played by 12-year-old Roddy McDowell.

“Everything I learned as a boy was from my father. And I don’t believe anything he taught me was every wrong,” Huw narrates at the beginning of the film.

His father, played by Donald Crisp, and five older brothers work at the coal mine, happily singing every day when they return home. His mother and sister are there with dinner ready as the men wash up for the day.

But when pay is cut at the mine, the family is divided when the brothers disobey their father by speaking of unions and leave home to find higher paying work.

Huw’s older sister Angharad, played by Maureen O’Hara, falls in love with a new minister Mr. Griffith, played by Walter Pidgeon. However the two are unable to marry, because Griffith feels he never could provide for her and she unhappily marries a wealthy man.

While “Citizen Kane” is critically acclaimed now, it was probably impossible for the film to win best picture.

In his directing debut, Orson Welles ran into trouble with newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, the man who built and owned America’s largest newspaper chain.

“Citizen Kane” is a thinly veiled biographical movie about the life of Hearst, who was still living in 1941.

From being involved in politics to a relationship with Susan Alexander Kane, who was supposed to be actress Marion Davies, it’s hard to deny that Charles Foster Kane is Hearst.

The film was originally set to open in Radio City Music Hall in February 1941, until Hearst stepped in, said Joseph Cotten, who played Jedediah Leland in the film, in his autobiography “Vanity Will Get You Somewhere.”

“Of course I knew we’d been treading on thin ice with the obvious similarities between Kane and William Randolph Hearst. I also knew that Mr. Hearst was a powerful man. I was to discover just how powerful,” said Cotten. “The Radio City Music Hall turned down Citizen Kane because Louella Parsons, Hearst’s right hand, had threatened the theater.”

The executive producer, George Schaefer, was offered money to destroy the picture and the negative.

“The whole motion picture industry was threatened if they showed the movie,” Cotten said. “Hearst’s newspapers would bring skeletons out of the closets, and there were many.”

Schaefer refused to be bullied and was able to get bookings for the film in a couple of independent movie houses, Cotten said.

“Although people who sneaked in to see the picture raved about it, none of our names were mentioned in the Hearst newspapers or mentioned in Louella Parson’s column,” he said. “What I found personally rather baffling, after Kane, I made several movies in which my name was above the title but Hearst’s newspapers always managed to review these pictures without mentioning my name. It was quite a feat to tell the entire story of a film and leave out the leading man.”

While the Academy would have likely suffered ruin from Hearst, it seems there was no way “Kane” could have won Best Picture.

However, while I enjoy both movies, I think “How Green Was My Valley” was the worthy Best Picture winner.

“Kane” is grittier, ground-breaking and controversial, but it doesn’t have the beauty and heart that “Valley” has.

I recently watched “How Green Was My Valley” for the first time and for the first 10 minutes my jaw was dropped. The beauty that director John Ford conveys is breath taking, and some scenes are so full of emotion no words have to be spoken. I’m not one to sob during movies, but I teared up seven times while watching this one.

One scene that stuck out in my mind is after all the sons leave the dinner table after an argument about unions. Ford does a long shot down the table, showing empty seats and the father has sadly dropped his head. Huw sitting at the far end of the table coughs lightly to let his father know he is still there.

“I know you are there, son,” Father said.

I have seen all the movies nominated for that year, and while I enjoy all of them, none of them struck me as much as “How Green Was My Valley.”

The haunting beauty of the countryside and the heart-breaking emotion in the film has stuck with me after I turned off the movie.

Though “How Green Was My Valley” has been on lists of worst best picture winners in articles and blogs, I feel it was the rightful award winner of that year.

Best Picture Nominees for 1941:

How Green Was My Valley Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp and Roddy McDowell. The film follows tragedies of a mining family in South Wales.

Blossoms in the Dust: Starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. The biographical story of Edna Gladney who fights to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records of orphans.

Citizen Kane: Starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotton and Ruth Warwick. The fictional life of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane who rises to the top and ends up dying alone, realizing his simple childhood was his happiest time.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan: Starring Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains and Evelyn Keyes. A boxer dies too early, by the mistake of an angel who takes his spirit thinking he’s dead. To rectify the mistake, his spirit is put into the body of a recently murdered play boy.

Hold Back the Dawn: Starring Charles Boyer, Paulette Goddard and Olivia DeHavilland. A Romanian stuck at the boarder of Mexico tries to con an American school teacher by marrying her in order to enter the United States.

The Little Foxes: Starring Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and Teresa Wright. A ruthless wife, estranged from her husband tries to use her daughter to get him back for a sneaky business deal with her brothers.

The Maltese Falcon: Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet. A private detective deals with three suspicious characters, all looking for what is thought to be a jewel encrusted bird.

One Foot in Heaven: Starring Fredric March and Martha Scott. The film follows the life of a minister raising a family as they travel from parish to parish.

Sergeant York: Starring Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie. Biographical film about Alvin York, the most decorated American soldier of World War I, for capturing and killing over 150 Germans.